Ilona Staller

"I am available to make love with Saddam Hussein to achieve peace in the Middle East".

Ilona Staller was born in 1951 in Budapest, daughter of an internal minister and a midwife. At thirteen, she modeled a little for a Hungarian company. She started out studying medicine, intending to have a future career in gynecology, but eventually stopped her studies to dedicate herself to archeology. Later, she managed to grab a job with an Italian modeling agency, M.T.I, that was hiring fifty women from Hungary to model for the company.

Upon arriving in Italy, she started out working at a radio station in a risque radio programme, Voulez vous coucher avec moi . It was the job that landed her the nick name 'cicciolina', and her show was one which really challenged the moral integrity and prudish tendencies of the Italian public.

In 1978, hr breasts broke a record in being the first pair to be bared on Italian television.

In 1979, Staller founded an environmentally-conscious organisation, and she actively began to promote awareness regarding nuclear energy, human rights and world hunger - there seemed to be a new political tinge added to her sexy persona which came out every time she appeared in public.

She worked with the Rai, a respectable italian TV channel, as well as in films and politics until 1986, in which year she became part of the radical Italian party, gleaning ten thousand other new voters upon showing the party her favours.

She was elected as a member of the radical party, and it was thus that in 1987 became a member of the Italian parliament. Interestingly, she starred in her last porno film in 1989, two years later. She was to bring forward many ideas- she spoke about nuclear energy, sexual liberty, abolition of censorship, the right of prison-inmates to have sex and information on sexual health being provided in schools.

Her love of nature is what pushed Ilona as a politician and led her to propose an automobile tax, in order to limit damage dealt to the environment by smog. She spoke in favour of animals about banning their exploitation and raising them for their fur and for experimentation. She was also adamantly against the death-sentence.

She married American sculptorJeff Koons in 1991. The man created many sculptures inspired by his unusual wife, some depicting the couple having sex. The marriage however came to an untimely end just a year later, when the couple broke up.

She is much admired by many for her lack of falsity - for her ability to be both 'slutty' and yet respectful, for her denouncing of hypocrisy and her ability to demonstrate that one was not a slave to only one lifestyle - she happily managed to live two at the same time.

Currently, the former porn star is trying to expand her campaign to Hungary, her homeland, to raise awareness on local issues and injustices there.